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Domains Blocked By US Treasury 'Blacklist'
yuna49 writes "Adam Liptak of the New York Times reports today about the plight of a Spanish tour operator whose domain names have been embargoed by his domain name registrar (eNom). They pulled his domains after they discovered the tour operator's name on a US Treasury blacklist. It turns out he packages tours to Cuba largely for European tourists who can legally travel there, unlike Americans. The article cites 'a press release issued in December 2004, almost three years before eNom acted. It said Mr. Marshall's company had helped Americans evade restrictions on travel to Cuba and was "a generator of resources that the Cuban regime uses to oppress its people." It added that American companies must not only stop doing business with the company but also freeze its assets, meaning that eNom did exactly what it was legally required to do.' The only part of the operator's business in the United States is his domain name registration; all other aspects of his business lie outside the United States."
... are breaking the law if they go there?
*gets out his eraser and starts removing that "Land Of The Free" line from all the songbooks...*
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
How many here would decry the Chinese and assorted third world countries for censorship of the internet, and yet, here we (in the US) act no differently. It makes me wonder how many things we just don't see, because the DNS entry doesn't even show up.
Are we truly free? Or is that just an illusion?
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
They are mostly free too because no one has bought them. But perhaps useful in this case,
My little Linux and tech blog
...to the EU's argument that censorship restricts free trade. This looks to be a fairly clear example where censorship caused direct economic difficulties.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
But, this travel company has learned another lesson: Don't buy domains from eNom, they suck in so many ways....
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I mean, this has me chilled to the bone. Ignoring the ridiculousness that in a "free" country we have "travel restrictions", the fact that they can legally perform such blocking with little or no recourse alone has me shaking.
I fear we are too trustworthy in the robustness of the internet and I'm even more afraid of the day if the powers at large decide the bring the hammer down. I don't think net neutrality legislation would be effective against a determined oppressor, it only takes a few dragging anchors for them to tear through a few laws.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Just go with a non-american ISP/domain name reistrar. It's not as if the US rules the planet, there are plenty of ways to continue working without their say-so or approval. Just move to a free locationa and continue with your legitimate business.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
No issues then, any european who trades with an american firm is asking for problems.
It sounds as thought the great firewall of America will be installed sooner or later. Apparently all it would take is a judge and software that has already been developed, tested, and deployed by American companies in China. Not that it's anything new... we've been censoring the internet for more than a decade now in the name of copyright with the 1997 NET Act. It appears the nationalist crowd has modded you flamebait early... maybe some sane meta-mods will take care of that.
You can't take the sky from me...
Undoubtably I'll be modded down to flamebait, but as a non-US citizen I get pretty tired of the US trying to be the 'policeman of the world' and at the same time pull these underhanded tricks.
Another example I came upon today is how the White House was planning to overthrow the democratically chosen Hamas party, because it didn't stroke with their plans.
What happened with "With great power comes great responsibility"? The US is just acting as the schoolyard bully.
Note that I understand that "The US" != "all US citizens", but please, you're the only ones that can do something about this. So please do so.
We can trade out the ass with Red China, and cozy up to Uzbekistan, but Cuba, no es posible. Why? Because Cubans who fled Cuba after the revolution because they wanted their comfort and money more than they wanted to stay and fight, now control a lot more political power in America than they should. We can ask if Cuba really has it that bad. Its major export is educated people. Doctors, mostly. Can we acknowledge that maybe individual greed doesn't steer everything in the right direction all the time? Sure Cuba has poor folks. Do we care about poor folks in Cuba more than we care about the Americans that were left stranded in New Orleans after Katrina for political reasons? Not this year. The US has more people in prison than any other country in the world. Yes, and that is not by percentage. Cut the bullshit, we need to get over our sense of exceptionalism.
http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=389&year=2007 USA 16th
But do you really expect people to think freely if they've been spouting the pledge of allegence since they were 5?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
This problem, like many others, can be fixed by one simple thing. FORCING OUR DAMN GOVERNMENT TO ABIDE BY THE CONSTITUTION.
Our Constitution is quite possibly the greatest piece of law ever written in the history of mankind. Unfortunately, the politicians (both democrats and republicans) have decided it can be ignored at will. We need to change this. We need to force every aspect of the government to operate under the full strength of our Constitution.
No more seizing property without due process.
No more stifling free speech just because it might offend somebody.
No more wiretaps of citizens and legal residents to fight terrorists without a court order signed by a REAL judge.
No more government agencies that aren't sanctioned by the Constitution (list to long to put here).
I am sicked by any politician who doesn't consider the Constitution the most sacred document in existence. Which means I'm sicked by ALL politicians.
-- Will program for bandwidth
That which passes for 'left wing' in the US is to the far right by the rest of humanity's standards. Try again, this time with perspective.
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
It's almost like we're kind of pissed at the Castro family for encouraging the Soviet Union to launch those nuclear missiles he had on his island.
Yes, its almost like we're immature children who spitefully cling to their hatred long after the conflict is over and everyone else has grown up and gotten over it.
Hell, we've even made peace with the country that actually designed, built, and deployed the missles to cuba. You know, the country that actually owned them and put them their with the express purpose of creating a threat? The country that the 'cold war' was actually with? We made peace with them. But apparently our rage for a dying old man whose island they were on... for him... our hatred is boundless.
Grow up aready.
Yes, -1 Not conforming with majority opinion
No. -1 for being an immature and childish country.
You know, because of that whole trying to murder tens of millions of us and all.
You might want to check your history. The Soviets put missiles in Cuba in response to the fact that the USA put missiles in Turkey. Not that it stops their of course, the cold war was a series of moves and responses, but the point remains... Castro was a PAWN in a much bigger game of chess [er... global thermonuclear war] and his role and personal relevance was laughably minor.
In light of this and the wikileaks thing, I think it's interesting that the best we can do to censor foreign websites, is mess with their DNS registrar. Long term, that is just not going to be a viable tactic. It's like wack-a-mole, except that after the first mole, the remaining moles are out of reach.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Saudis are not significant voting block in an important state in Presidential elections, as Cubans are...
You kidding me? If the Saudis ever had a popular revolution start up, the US would send everything we got to keep them propped up and in place.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Yet another reason why .com/.net/.org (and the stupid newer ones) should be abolished and all domains should end in their country codes. There is no such thing as not being under the control of SOME countries laws.
to all of the americans here trashing their own government:
if you as a cuban tried this in cuba, it is in the law of the land to arrest and jail you
if you doubt that, i'm not going to be your google monkey: go to the massively neocon sources of amnesty international and human rights watch and tell me what they say about the law in cuba about saying bad things about the government
so please, by all means, bash the us government: it's your right, you are respected as an american to bash your own government. just try to understand exactly what the real enemy is here. some people have a colossal lack of scale and perspective
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The ability to own other people.
The lack of universal suffrage.
The electoral college and variegated citizenship.
The concept of equality and fairness.
It is folly to assume a document written in the 1700's would be a very good fit for the 2000's.
Woe be on to them, all who rise against poor people, shall perish in a the end. Buju Banton
So what exactly is the difference between Cuba and China? Oh, that's right! China makes cheap shit for Walmart. And they support American corporations, which is what you right-wing loonies really mean when you talk about "spreading democracy." That is, spreading corporate influence around the globe. That's Cuba's real crime. They won't let the American corporations back in. Does anybody not understand this?
Hic iacet Arthurus, rex quondam rexque futurus.